Play

We’ve seen big changes in the way kids play compared to just a few decades ago, particularly in the ways they experience and connect with nature.

In a recent UK survey, 81% of the kids said they wanted more freedom to play outside, and almost half of them said they were not allowed to play outside unsupervised. Another study in the UK found that 90% of parents had never made a tree house with their kids and 37% had never taken their children looking for wildlife.

Read that again – over one in three kids have never been taken out to look for wildlife!

Do the changes in the ways our kids play and experience nature really matter that much? Over a relatively short time, adults have allowed the connection to the natural world to slip gradually away from our children’s lives, and this has huge ripple effects on our kids’ health and well-being, not to mention our community as a whole.

Not getting outdoors to play has significant impacts on our children’s physical health. Nearly one-quarter of Australian kids have been identified as overweight or obese, and 14% of kids have been diagnosed with a mental health disorder in Australia.

It’s time to Unjunkit and encourage our children to be more active, spend more time in unstructured play, and get outside to experience nature.